* According to the International Organization for Migration (an intergovernmental organization related to the United Nations), more than 17,000 people died in the Mediterranean between 2014 and 2018 while trying to reach Europe.
11.
Foreigners
The following week the social worker who Zena contacted on Terry Hugot’s advice comes to our house to evaluate the situation, and Zena is relieved to have someone to give her some guidance.
“I do all this running around and research,” she confides in me, “but I’m always worried something could be passing me by or I might be doing some harm.”
Over a cup of tea, Sibylle P. listens to the Al Khalib family’s accounts of their journey and then starts to examine the papers that each member has filled in at Albi’s administrative offices, along with the results of the boys’ CASNAV tests.
“Tell me, Mrs. Pélissier,” she says, “am I right in thinking Samer isn’t your brother?”
“Yes, that’s right, he’s my cousin.”
“So he has no legal guardian here in France?”
“No…”
Zena feels a dark pit open up inside her stomach. She knows instantly, she admits to me later. She knows even before the social worker says anything more.
“Unfortunately, he can’t stay with you. He’s a minor and you’re not his parents.”
“But we’re the only relations he has in France.”
“I understand but it’s the law. I’ll help you get him into a school, just as I will with Anas, but I’ll also contact shelters for unaccompanied minors to find him a place in the area. The director of whichever shelter has room for him will then be responsible for Samer’s asylum application.”
It takes all Zena’s strength to hold back her tears. Samer has heard his name and seen Sibylle P. looking at him. He doesn’t understand what she’s saying and is studying Zena’s face—she can’t leave him in suspense.
“Can I have a moment, please. I need to translate for Samer.”
When Zena has finished explaining what’s going on, Samer sits there speechless for a moment and then retreats, devastated, to take refuge with Anas in Julia’s room.
The social worker stands up.
“I understand how difficult this is, I’ll leave you together for a moment. I need to call the school that I think will best meet Anas and Samer’s needs.”
Wafaa goes to fetch the two boys and does her best to console Samer, who feels rejected and abandoned. His father walked out on him and his mother just as he was taking his first steps; he has fled his country, leaving behind his mother with no idea when he’ll see her again; we are all the family he has and now he’s to be dragged away. Anas is fighting back tears too. He has always been very close to his cousin, but they have become brothers over the course of their shared ordeals. Saif is quiet, somber: He feels he is being asked to abandon someone he promised to look after. He puts his hands on Samer’s shoulders.
“Samer, I promise you, we’ll always be here for you. Let’s wait till we know what sort of place you’re offered in a shelter, then we’ll see.”
When the social worker knocks on the door to join us again, calm has been restored, at least to outward appearances. Sibylle P. smiles at Anas and Samer, then turns to Zena.
“You can give them some good news: They’ll be in the same class together at high school from next Monday!”
Zena can’t get over it, it’s incredible. The two boys have very limited French for now but they have places in the FLE—French as a foreign language—tenth grade at the Toulouse-Lautrec High School right here in Albi, the only school for miles around to take in non-French speakers like this. Samer and Anas were both in eleventh grade in Syria, but this FLE class will mean they have time to become comfortably fluent in French. Knowing that they will be together in school at least is some comfort to Samer and Anas, and reassures Zena and her parents.
Sibylle P. goes over our household income with Zena.
“You have only one salary coming in, that’s tricky. I don’t know if you know this but your parents and sister could claim financial support, at least once they’re properly registered in Toulouse.”
“Well, we have heard about that,” Zena says, “but how does it work?”
“It’s called ATA*1 and it’s means-tested financial assistance for adult foreigners. So Samer and Anas are not eligible for it because they’re under eighteen. And the hitch is that the only way this allowance can be paid is by bank transfer into the beneficiary’s account, which means the three of them will need to open accounts at La Banque Postale, because that’s the only one that offers accounts to foreigners. I might as well warn you that they won’t have checkbooks or credit cards. They’ll each receive around three hundred euros a month.”
Zena calls me as soon as the social worker has left to let me know about Samer and the ATA—heartache on the one hand, and on the other a piece of positive news for my parents-in-law, who won’t feel so dependent on us. There’s never a dull day for our family!
By the end of the week, the director of a children’s home in Castres has contacted Zena. They have a place for Samer and he must go as soon as possible. We’re all stunned. So soon? So far? Zena asks whether he can be accommodated in Albi, but the local children’s home is full. Castres is a forty-minute drive away, but the director reassures her that Samer will still attend the same school as Anas: A bus service will get him there—he’ll just need to get up a lot earlier in the mornings.
With heavy hearts, Zena, her parents, and I take Samer to Castres, and help him settle in over the course of the weekend. We’re all very quiet on the way there, and that’s a first since my Syrian family has been living with us. When we park outside the bright, spruce building, Samer is in tears. My stomach is in knots and I’m gripping the steering wheel fiercely. The director welcomes us, doing everything he can to put us at ease. He takes us to the studio where Samer will now be living: it’s tiny but clean, functional, and fully furnished. It’s in a building of about twenty similar studios, which is attached to the main building where the communal spaces are. The director explains that there’s a central laundry where young residents must do their own washing. He tells us that an optional communal evening meal is offered, but all the studios have a kitchenette and residents are encouraged to prepare their own meals independently as soon as they can.
My throat feels constricted—Samer’s just a boy! I remember when I was seventeen, what a privileged existence I had with my mother doing everything for me. I think I’m right in saying I earned my first salary before making my first proper meal for myself.
It’s time to leave and our goodbyes are heartbreaking, even though Samer does his best to be dignified, aware that he’s being fast-tracked into adulthood with no time to prepare for it. Wafaa, who’s sitting in the passenger seat on the way home, turns to me and whispers, “We’ll cook for him on the weekends because he’s going to lose more weight during the week.”
* * *
—
The meeting in Toulouse is scheduled for the following Wednesday. Zena has tried her best to be prepared, collating every possible document and even the results of her father’s medical tests. Over dinner on Tuesday evening, Saif Eddine is very gloomy.
“I don’t know how it’s going to go tomorrow, Stéphan, but I keep thinking about what happened in Hungary. Those brutes took our fingerprints by force, you know. That can’t be a good sign.”
Their meeting is at nine o’clock in the morning, and Zena has decided to take no chances so she leaves at 7:30. Neither of us has ever been to the prefectural office in Toulouse, which is in a magnificent early-eighteenth-century building, formerly the archbishop’s palace. It’s right in the city center, close to the cathedral, and parking is a challenge. Zena goes around in circles for twenty minutes before finding a space more than a kilometer away. When they fi
nally arrive at the huge palace, the first hurdles are a walk-through metal detector and compulsory searches by the friendly security staff. Zena asks one of them where they need to go, and is directed to the third floor. At the top of the monumental staircase, a set of double doors leads to the relevant department. These doors open onto a waiting room whose chairs, as is invariably the case, are bolted to the floor, and a row of three counters—all of them closed with metal shutters. Opposite the doors, a long corridor leads off to the offices that handle applications for citizenship.
When Zena and her family arrive, all the seats in the waiting room are, of course, taken. There are already more than fifty people there. After chatting to some of them, Zena realizes that everyone is called for either 9 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon. It’s not until nearly 9:30 that one of the metal shutters opens, and everyone immediately crowds around the counter. The woman at the desk makes an announcement, speaking up so that everyone can hear her:
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll call you forward one family at a time to have your fingerprints taken.”
She says this two or three times, then snaps the metal shutter closed again, and everyone sits back down slowly. Zena can see that her parents are panicking at the mention of fingerprints. They’ve heard—from people they met on their journey and from social media—about “dublinning” and asylum seekers being thrown out…A very large majority of the people around them are Syrian, and many of them are in the same situation and just as frightened. Zena has a long conversation with an elderly man, a Syrian who came to France forty years ago and is here to help his family by translating for them. Tall and very elegant with snow-white hair and a spectacular moustache, he reminds Zena of Damascus patriarchs and for a moment she loses herself in memories. He admits that he’s very worried for his fellow countrymen: The situation in Syria is out of control, and European countries have all clamped down after making great promises about asylum…Who will offer them shelter? Who will save Syrian children?
Two young girls have given up their seats for Wafaa and Saif Eddine, who sit abjectly with their heads in their hands. The atmosphere across the whole waiting room is tense, stifling, faces are strained, bodies tired; babies cry and their mothers—blank faced, their minds on other things—take them out of their strollers to soothe them. One of the desks is open again and names are now called out at regular intervals in an apparently random order. It’s a long wait. Staff members come through the waiting room to head off down the corridor toward the offices that handle applications for citizenship. Dressed in formal suits, some eye the refugees with near contempt, others simply ignore them. One or two do give them a “hello” when they first come through, but because they receive no reply, no acknowledgment, they soon give up this obviously superfluous courtesy.
The Al Khatib family is finally called just before eleven o’clock, and Zena and her relatives approach the desk. The olive-skinned woman at the window greets them with a smile and reiterates the fact that she will now take their fingerprints, although she doesn’t explain why. She calls out each first name and pushes forward a small tablet on which they must press their fingers. She then slips out through the door behind her and disappears for a few minutes. She returns with this news:
“You’ve already requested asylum in another European country, Hungary, so it’s up to Hungary to make a decision about your circumstances and to choose whether it would like to repatriate you—they have a two-month window in which to make this decision. I’m going to give each of you a document confirming that your case is pending, and you’ll need to come back every two weeks to have it stamped to prove that you’re still in France. Go back to the waiting room now, a social worker will come to see you in a few minutes.”
Zena, my parents-in-law, Anas, and Mayada are devastated. Not very surprised, but horrified. Hungary? The country where they were subjected to the worst acts of cruelty, a place to which they have no ties of any kind, it makes no sense at all! Their lives and ambitions now revolve around France, and nowhere else. How can anyone tell them they “requested asylum” in Hungary? They asked for nothing at all, for goodness’ sake, they just ended up in a cell where their fingerprints were taken by force. In France, an application for asylum is a detailed administrative file, a full account of the person’s life, and an individual interview at the OFPRA.*2 In Hungary, is it just having your fingerprints taken with threats of violence in a filthy overcrowded cell? Where’s the logic in all this? Who writes these laws that only add to the misery of people who’ve already lost everything in their attempts to save their own lives? Where’s the humanity in it? Where’s the simple decency? Still, no one tries to argue or rail against the woman who has delivered the news. They all accept that there would be no point.
* * *
—
The thing we were dreading has happened: Saif, Wafaa, Mayada, and Anas are now in the grips of the Dublin Regulation, and will have to wait for Hungary to respond. So two weeks later here they are back in Toulouse, going through the soulless and meaningless procedure that they will have to endure another three times.
An hour and fifteen minutes’ drive, plus the time spent parking.
Fifty people in the waiting room.
It’s nine o’clock, the department’s official opening time, but nothing’s happening.
At ten o’clock, one desk opens and a voice asks everyone in the room to bring their “case pending” forms. The crowd gathers, forms are passed from hand to hand.
The desk closes again as soon as the last form has been taken.
Another hour’s wait.
The comings and goings of employees handling citizenship applications continue. They study the ground and look away to avoid eye contact with the poor people who have come here for refuge.
The same solitary desk opens again and, in a monotonous drone, the voice calls families forward by name, one after the other.
When it is Zena’s family’s turn, the news is always the same: “Hungary hasn’t replied. Here are your stamped forms. Come back in two weeks.”
An hour and fifteen minutes’ journey back to Albi.
And still the same uncertainty.
Which is increasingly difficult to take.
We do our best to support one another, savoring every moment we have together, but it’s difficult. Even though Wafaa and Saif Eddine clearly enjoy being with us, they’re always worried that they’re in the way, a burden. As they see it, parents should look after their children and not be their dependents.
And then Wafaa hears about CADAs, shelters for asylum seekers.
“We can’t go on invading your home like this,” she says immediately. “We must apply for rooms in a CADA.”
Zena’s appalled.
“But Mom, Stéphan and I are happy you’re here. And look at Julia, she adores you, you can’t deprive her of your company.”
But there’s no changing Wafaa’s mind, she won’t give up. She only abandons the plan when Zena contacts the director of the CADA in Albi who tells her that none of the shelters for many kilometers around have any spaces.
Dr. R. still sees every member of the family regularly. More than once she advises all of them to see a psychiatrist at the hospital. She tells them about psychological trauma, the problems caused by their rootless existence, by losing everything when they left their country, the effects of the horrors they experienced on their journey, and the trials of adjusting to a culture so different from their own. But they all refuse, unanimous in this decision. It infuriates Zena because she has already consulted a psychologist and knows how useful therapy is. But she understands that this is cultural and all the arguments in the world won’t make them change their minds. In Syria, seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist is viewed as a last resort for incurable mental cases and the feebleminded. Isabelle R. is right, though: They would all benefit from this sort of therapy, especially Anas. I’m disc
reetly keeping an eye on him and can see he’s not gaining weight and still has the same dark rings under his eyes as when he arrived. His nights are constantly troubled by nightmares from which he wakes screaming. He can’t be left alone in a room, even in broad daylight. We always leave a light on in the living room where he sleeps. The slightest sudden noise gives him terrible panic attacks. The poor boy’s showing all the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and, if untreated, they’ll dog him for years to come. Zena is endlessly attentive and thoughtful toward him. If he seems to like a meal, she and her mother keep making it until he won’t touch it again. Saif drives him to school in the mornings, picks him up at the end of the day, and takes him along to do the grocery shopping.
“Tell me, Anas,” I sometimes tease, “do you still have legs? Because you’re being driven around so much they’ll start to atrophy, don’t you think?”
But Zena always flashes a furious look at me.
“He’s tired, he needs all his strength for school.”
I know exactly what she means. Let’s mollycoddle him while we can. And anyway, I know that these outings are important to Saif, giving him something to do, making him feel useful. My father-in-law was such a busy man in Damascus, this is something he really needs.
Personally, I’m starting to struggle with being the tower of strength that I want to be for my family. I may be exhausted when I go to bed but I always toss and turn for hours before getting to sleep. I’m irritable and impatient at work even though I’m lucky to have a job I love. I’ve also altered my schedule a lot since Zena’s family moved in with us, and none of my coworkers has commented. I’ve done this partly to spend more time with them, but also to support Zena who has so much on her plate: I arrive at the office a little later in the mornings and leave a lot earlier in the evenings. But there’s no denying that my legendary optimism is gradually giving way to very unfamiliar defeatism. The glass half full—that used to be me. The one who stood tall when others were faltering—that used to be me. But my strength has its limits too and I no longer know how to be encouraging when Zena describes their trips to the prefectural office. I admit this only to myself in the secrecy of the night, but I’m starting to prepare myself for her family being deported, and I feel terribly guilty: If I’d planned my course of action better before going to Greece, they wouldn’t have been forced to travel through the Balkan states and we wouldn’t have come to this. Zena also tells me I might benefit from seeing a psychologist. She’s worried because she can see that I’m growing more despondent by the day. But I refuse to, I grit my teeth and keep right on beating myself up, my self-criticism going around in circles—how could I be so naive and so powerless, both in Patras and here in France.
I Just Wanted to Save My Family Page 9